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Australian wine imports double
January 17, 2008
By Panos Kakaviatos
Australian wine imports doubled last year while domestic wine sales fell, new figures show.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that import wine volumes doubled from November 2006 to November 2007, as domestic wine sales fell almost 9%.
Over the 12-month period, average volumes of imported foreign wine leaped from 3m to 6m litres, said Damian Sparkes, manager of the ABS wine statistics unit.
'Historically, New Zealand is the largest contributor, with European countries in second, led by France,' he told decanter.com.
Out of the 6.1m litres of imported wine in November 2007, New Zealand accounted for 3.2m. Of the smaller importing countries, Chile advanced the most, Sparkes said.
Much of the increase comes as domestic wine sales dipped by 8.7 per cent to 34m litres.
Sparkes blamed 'environmental' reasons resulting in a smaller Australian grape crush over the last year.
'There was a drought,' he said. Bush fires resulted in smoke taint in the fruit and there was the development of fungus in cooler weather climates.
Have your say...
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I'm Australian and have been drinking local and imported wines (mainly French) for over 30 years. In recent years, there has been a much stronger fine wine culture in Australia, and a lot of interest in diversity of styles. Five years ago, I was chided for posting notes about Bordeaux and Burgundy on local wine enthusiast sites, now the same people who criticised me are doing the same!
Some who refused to drink “frog” wine (or anything other than Australian or maybe NZ if they don't beat us in Rugby) are now besotted with Cheval Blanc and Chambertin.
Whilst there has been the effect of drought, Australian sales of Champagne for example have steadily risen for many years, and there has been solid growth in imports of not only the top growths, but of wines that are of styles that Australia does not produce. Yet the key issue here is diversity; we all like Hill of Grace but the development has been outward.
Mark Dignam, Sydney, Australia
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